NINTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART III 119 
As I said, the first proposition is as to whether tliere can be any immed- 
iate profit to the farmer and stockmen in the use of ensilage with 'beef 
cattle. In order to determine that question we must consider for a 
moment what the present revenue from the principal cattle feed of this 
country is, that is, the corn crop. It is told us, and generally conceded, 
that sixty per cent of the feeding value of the corn plant is in the ear, 
and forty per cent in the stalk and leaves and the husk. The first in- 
quiry, therefore, should be to ascertain what if any value under present 
methods of feeding is realized from the corn plant aside from the corn 
inthe ear. 
In Ohio, in our section particularly, four-fifths or more of the corn 
is cut up and chopped, and either fed in the shock, or husked and the 
corn and the fodder fed separately. That is a necessity with us, growing 
out of the fact that oats is not a very profitable crop with us. I suppose 
it is also your least profitable crop here. It is also true that oats is not 
so good a crop to use in getting sets of grass as is wheat, and that for 
tne proper sowing of winter wheat a properly cultivated corn-field fur- 
nishes an ideal seed bed, if you can get the corn removed so that you 
can put it in proper condition by working it a couple of inches in depth. 
With us that fodder is worth, I should say, on an average about eight 
cents a shock or $1.50 an acre, counting about 19 shocks to the acre. 
Practically, however, a great per cent of the fodder is not used; it goes 
to waste. It stands out in the weather all winter, and much of it is 
burned in the spring. The expense to us of cutting up that corn and 
handling it after it has been raised, strange as it may seem, is about five 
times what it costs to raise it. The farmer does not count the use of 
his equipment of teams and tools, except as he takes it in as a part of 
his capital stock and charges interest on it. The material thing with 
the farmer is the cash outlay. The cash outlay for raising that corn is 
not to exceed $2.00 per acre; in fact, we have hired our corn raised for 
years at $1.50 per acre. A man at $25.00 a month, in the possession of 
three good horses and the proper tools, will tend fifty acres of corn in 
three months' time. That is $75.00. $2.00 an acre would pay $30.00 a 
month for raising that corn. The corn has to be husked, which costs 
$2.50 an acre. It has to be cribbed, which costs 50 cents. It will cost you 
two cents a bushel, ordinarily, either to market or feed that corn. You 
have the fodder in the field that must be hauled out a little at a time 
through the winter in the mud, and you can't possibly do that short of 
$1.00 an acre. So you have $6.00 an acre of a cash outlay, putting it 
moderately, after you have raised your corn. 
Now, you men in the west here cut up probably not more than ten 
per cent of your corn. The question with you is, what is the value of 
these stalks in the field? In our country I never knew of stalks selling 
at more than $1.00 an acre, and probably 50 or 75 cents is all the value 
there is in them to you. If those stalks are forty per cent of the value 
of the whole crop, even if you are getting $1.00 an acre for them that 
is a very small per cent of what they are worth. If corn makes fifty 
bushels to the acre and you count it worth 40 cents on the farm, there is 
$20.00 an acre. If the stalks are worth forty per cent of the corn, $13.67 
is the value of them, and if you are getting only $1.00 an acre for them 
